


The Importance of Being Unimportant

by Gee_Writes



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: Blood, Canon Compliant, Introspection, M/M, Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-18
Updated: 2014-12-18
Packaged: 2018-03-02 00:09:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2792675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gee_Writes/pseuds/Gee_Writes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time he'd watched a man bleed out, he was five years old.</p><p>[A Killua introspective piece.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Importance of Being Unimportant

He had trained his whole life to hone this skill. An acute sense of hearing that rivalled most. One that let him count the breaths of dying men, the gurgling of blood through the skin.

 

The first time he'd watched a man bleed out, he was five years old. Twenty-three seconds, and his father's hand darting into the hapless victim's back was all it took. The faint light in brown eyes had faded as the CEO spluttered messily, and Killua distinctly remembered being lifted under a strong arm to prevent the pooling blood from seeping into his shoes. His father chuckling when he had wriggled in protest.

 

And that day he'd learnt one of the business' most important rules.

 

_No matter who we are, death will find us all. We just help it along._

 

He'd never thought that anything he'd learnt, thus far in his life, be it from his family or Gon, would ever be truer than those words. It was a curling, inescapable necessity of life, for it to end. Something that power, or fame, or money couldn't combat – or at least, not forever. If anything, those things beaconed it closer, trying to outmanoeuvre death until they inevitably slipped and got caught. It was commonplace for the client of the past to become the target for the present. 

 

It was those sorts of people Killua had known.

 

People didn't hire assassins to get rid of the poor; burly goons or sickness could get that job done without the expense. Important people, they were the ones with a price on their head. And, considering his bounty, Killua guessed he was an important person too.

 

An upper echelon of society. That's what they were.

 

When he was eight, he'd been hired to get rid of a princess. Nothing too fancy; just ambiguous enough to pass as natural causes. And once she'd finished struggling - clawing at his arms as he'd pressed the pillow down, firm enough to suffocate, gentle enough to prevent bruising - he'd taken a moment to rearrange her pose. Straighten the sheets and pull a tranquil look of peace on her face. It was the longest time he'd spent with a target after the job had been done, and it was the first time, in a long time, that he'd remembered the victim's name afterwards.

 

He couldn't remember it now, though.

 

The first time he'd seen the ocean, it was on the way back from the untimely demise of a hotel owner. The sand was golden in the sunset and the waves licked the shore in a tantalising way. Briny winds whipped around his legs, and for a moment he'd thought he could taste the hazy horizon. He'd given in to his desires, running into the surf and kicking up the sand with a fervour only young boys could achieve. And when the local police had asked him whether he'd seen anyone suspicious, he'd crinkled his brow and pretended to think. Apologising sheepishly to the two officers after a minute; blushing when one ruffled his hair in affection. 

 

Those sorts of people were unimportant.

 

That's why they could be happy. No-one wanted them dead.

 

Before he'd left home, Killua had asked Milluki whether life was fun. Knife plunged deep into his brother's side; he'd twisted hard enough for the growing stain to spill onto the stone beneath their feet, flecking the white of his shoes crimson. Similarly to that CEO so many years ago. To all the ones after him. His mother sat, dress irreparably damaged by the blood steadily dripping from her face; probably not blinded by the wound, but enough to disable her heavy stare that could disarm a man at 100 feet. Her nen, he now realised. 

 

As the quiet stretched - and his brother, too in pain to do more than groan and flick his eyes concernedly to their mother, couldn't give him an answer – he dropped the knife. His mother's happy sobs in the background as he left them; because of _course_ life wasn't fun when you were important. That was the way the world works.

 

So he'd decided to change.

 

In all honesty, Killua couldn't boast the best memory. It took him time and repetition to master something – but once he had it, it was in there forever. He'd thought the confusion was a product of his monotonous, homogenous life at home; and the arduous training throughout his life. But he'd discovered he wasn't nearly as smart as he thought he was, once he'd left. Or maybe that had been another one of Illumi's needles messing with his mind again.

 

When it came to recollecting his life; he'd more or less just broken his memories into before and after Gon. Because, well, that was the biggest distinction between them all.

 

By the time he'd met Gon in that dank tunnel, surrounded by struggling runners, he'd killed five people since leaving home. They were all hunter candidates, and they all thought they were important - loud and brash and _disruptive_ . Important enough to spit at him when he'd jumped on the boat, important enough to think beating up a child would be a good show of bravado before reaching Dolle Harbour. And he'd hardly made the decision to show what being important _means_ before it was done. Glazed eyes reflecting the sky, wooden deck slick and saturated.

 

The thrumming pound of four hundred footsteps had, at the time, left his ears ringing. Even for someone who hadn't spent their childhood listening out for the quiet buzz of surveillance cameras or the muted sighs of sleep, it was probably maddening. The distinct roll of his skateboard wheels cut through the closest noise, and amongst every echoing step and panting breath, he'd heard him – a genuine laugh resounding amongst the wearied runners.

 

A break from the monotony.

 

Gon was not important. He was happy and ambitious and an absolutely genuine person.

 

He was fun.

 

And even after they had spent that first week together, where he'd killed people both with and without Gon present. Even after his brother had scared him and reminded him that important people can't just _change_ , that there's a reason some people are important in the first place.

 

_Reminded him that death will find us all._

 

Even after all that, Gon was still there. He still looked at Killua like he was something more than what he knew, and still smiled that genuine smile – offering to share his dreams and plans and everything else he could give. He'd smiled and laughed and got playfully annoyed; he slowly started to resemble something he'd thought was unobtainable.

 

He should have known though that nothing lasts. Not when you're dealing with important people.

 

Not when you're hunting for Ging Freecss.

 

Hisoka was their first brush with it, an enigma of desires and unreadable fancies. He wasn't quite what Killua had dealt with in the past, but he knew enough to steer clear, or accept the proffered help, lest his mood turn like one of his many playing cards. To seek out something to protect them from this new foreign world where now, Gon was no longer completely unimportant. Something that Killua could use to protect Gon from the reality of his newly minted notoriety. And he'd learnt, under those fluorescent lights, that even the most unassuming person, with rumpled shirts and crooked spectacles, could be important - both in society, and for them. He realised that he'd be willing to do whatever it took, for Gon. To keep him safe.

 

The Phantom Troupe was harder, because they were – are – capital I important. And Kurapika, the angry, roiling, broken fragment of a lost people, was actively pursuing. Forcing himself to grow, to catch up, and somehow surpass them all. And Killua knew, for a fact, that that was the most dangerous way to interact with important people; but he helped anyway. Because Gon needed him to; because he wanted to. He hoped that Kurapika could somehow survive the sludge of the upper echelons. Didn't know if he could.

 

When they'd reached Greed Island that first time, after the foreign spell was cast on him and magic had become real, he'd panicked. Something in him slipped and all at once, this was too dangerous. For him, or Gon. Once he'd figured out the trick he was fine, but those first few hours, that first moment he'd gotten caught, he felt as if death had maybe finally caught up with him. To bring to him what he'd spent a lifetime bringing to others. So when Razor, and Genthru, and their respective goons finally arrived - crackling with power above the rest. And when Bisky had sent them digging through stone or running until their legs gave out. They barely compared to that frozen moment of realisation that maybe despite everything, he couldn't protect Gon. Especially when the rules were changing.

 

Or maybe it was him.

 

He hadn't realised how lost he was until that night in NGL. Without warning, the stakes had risen - humans were no longer the important ones, the ones that held power and tangled with death. They no longer had any means to combat the new threat, and everything he'd carefully built up was gone.

Where no heightened sense of hearing could have warned him in advance. Where years of training came crashing down for one monster. A monster who wasn't like the other's he'd encountered. Wasn't in a human skin. So they, he, had run.

When Kite had returned, broken, gone, Killua knew he'd failed. Knew that no matter what, getting involved with important people, these important creatures, was bad. That he had forgotten to protect Gon from the reality of the world. And stupidly, stupidly, he allowed things to stay the way they were. Had forgotten the most important thing.

 

_No matter who we are, death will find us all._

 

It still worried him, how easily Gon had dragged him along. How desperate Killua was, even at the eleventh hour, to do something, _anything,_ to keep Gon unimportant enough for him to survive this. And it worried him how Gon had changed without him noticing. That Gon had been running towards that murky destiny for a long time. That maybe, like Kurapika, he was too far gone.

 

And in that explosion of light, watching the most horrific moment he'd ever encountered in his short life, Killua almost laughed at his stupidity. Because of _course_ Gon was important.

 

He was the most important person in the world.

 

Which was why everything hurt. Why he couldn't see through the tears or the blinding brightness. Why his screams were swallowed by the rolling boom. Why Killua had wanted, wished, hoped, prayed, that something would change.

 

And, of course, it didn't.

 

Gon laid out on a hospital bed; heart monitors the only indication he was even there. Slowly beeping, piercing Killua's mind and leaving his ears ringing. Like in the tunnel, before any of this had happened. Before Killua had met Gon; before, when the world had made sense. Oxygen tent up, and innumerable bandages wrapped. A thin bundle of bones and cloth swamped in the bed. Even this, giving no indication of just how _bad_ a state Gon was in.

 

But he was alive. Gon was alive.  _Just_ . For once, Killua felt like there was hope, completely ignoring the _no matter who we are, death will find us all_ that had looped in his mind since he was five years old. He wouldn't let death catch up just yet. And maybe, he mused, this is how other people felt. Like death would only get you if you let it.

 

So he made use of his hearing, something he'd developed and honed over the years. A skill he had used to distinguish between a whisper of wind and a whisper of secrets. He held his breath and listened, for that tiny faint flow of breath from his friend. Any indication that death hadn't found him yet.

 

And this time, he'd get it right.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, and thank you for reading!  
> I'm sorry for, again, falling off the face of the Earth.
> 
> This had been stewing around in my head for a little while, but it's not really like anything I've done so far, so I hope it turned out OK!
> 
> If you want to leave me a message, or just chat HxH, my tumblr is compulsive-bibliotaph.tumblr.com


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